Sunday 17 March 2019

Science Fairs

Yes, I am sorry for using such swear words at the beginning of a post! However, I received an email from 'Science Sparks' which got me thinking about science fairs.
I know that there's a lot of bad press on science fairs -that it's an activity that a lot children switch off from, that parents spend hours and hours on them... I meant children not parents..., and that only a few actually enjoy these... and that's not even counting the resurrection of previous siblings' efforts with a few tweaks! However, I have worked with a few schools where our focus has been not so much attaining excellence in the local science fair association but simply to support children exploring how science itself works.
That last bit is out of the science essence statement in the New Zealand Curriculum. We aren't meant to be teaching 'stuff' so much as about science, how it works, how it is communicated, how scientists investigate, and what counts as evidence, etc. If we're serious about inquiry and student agency, the idea of science fairs could be really helpful -and that's not even counting the maths and literacy links as well: reading, writing up procedures, journal writing, and explanation writing. 

Science fairs on their own are a bit unfair on the general populace: pick a topic, go investigate and write up... all on your own! Homework at the best of times is not usually at the top of the list of 'what I like to do when I get home' and science fairs are no exception. And I haven't even got into the confusion for some students who've never really done one right in the first place!
So why not use Term Two as an opportunity for children to inquire in small groups, perhaps on class-set questions, investigate in a scaffolded environment and then present their ideas to the class, perhaps via video, google docs, or a poster. I certainly wouldn't go the whole way with publishing a la science fairs for the first efforts. Because my goal is always the development of the capabilities, that's my learning intention for the students -we're learning how to gather and interpret data and then use evidence to explain. We might need to be interpreting representations too. Later down the track, especially with the older students, we could critique the evidence of each others' projects. 

If the first half of the term was set up like this, with students learning how science works, making mistakes with investigative procedures and correcting, repeat testing, making sure results are reliable and valid as well as communicating as scientists, perhaps students would be inspired to carry out investigations on their own or in pairs (I'd have students in groups of 3 or 4 for the first half of the term). I might jot down questions and encourage students to do so as we investigate in the first part of the term and stick these questions on a wonder wall as it could encourage children with their own science fairs. 
From this, you might find quite a group that would like to go on to science fairs. It would be great if it was the whole school with juniors doing larger group investigations that may be whole class based whilst Y5-8 students are working more individually or in pairs. I think they could be more confident because of their prior work at the beginning of the term. 

I think I would begin the first week with all investigating the same question, perhaps set by the teacher (and yes, I know that isn't real inquiry or student agency but we need to start somewhere!) and then have a selection of questions for them to investigate for the following weeks. Doing this means we have results that we can compare... it would make a great reading task: read through group x's report on their experiment... what do you think of their procedure? Do you think their results are valid? Are they similar to yours? If not, why do you think that is? Write up to 3 questions that you'd like to pose to this group challenging their evidence.

So where do I find these delightful experiments? Well, the place that started my thinking is here: https://www.science-sparks.com/science-fair-project-ideas/. Find a few of my experiments and pose a question that would cause the children to carry out the first experiment and then pursue further answers. If you were part of my term four mailing list, there's a pile there that children could use. I might start with a simply one week investigation and then perhaps a two or three weeks investigation with some options before embarking on something bigger for science fair judging. 

In the Waikato, science fairs seem to be for Year 7 and 8 students only but that doesn't prevent schools having their own science fairs set up with the best four or five from each classroom in the hall. I guess smaller schools could have them all set up in one room whilst larger schools might have the classrooms all set up for the day because, and this is the important bit, others need to see the investigations. At the least, children from that classroom, but why not other students too? Perhaps it could be a parent evening. 

Last bit... the judging... more and more, I've noticed that science fair organisations are using the nature of science or capabilities to judge and this is fantastic! By the time we reach Level 4 of the curriculum, we should be beginning to see the importance of the content or knowledge but we can still score based on the capabilities: How well did they gather data? How well did they infer from the data -was it reliable and valid? In communicating with the reader, do they write tentatively and in that science-style genre? You may want a visitor to judge (and yes, I've been called in!) but be certain to share the school's criteria. 

Science Fair in the Waikato is in early August making Term Two perfect for this kind of science. Wrap your literacy programme around this too, critiquing pieces of writing and websites (tree octopus anyone?) as well as learning how to write journal or diary entries (lots of examples online) and experiments.

And that's next term planned for! I do hope some of you have a go, even if it's not to enter 'officially'. I think investigations for students can be really engaged ensuring that you as the teacher ask good questions to get the investigation going and continuing on. 

Keep on sciencing
Paul

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